Temporis
by Toffee Taffy
Summary: An existential crisis drives an old friend of Bella's to seek her out, and she realises just how much there is to learn about life from friends who have already died.
1. They Call This Summer

Purists should consider this very much AU.

* * *

_Friday. Ante meridiem – 15°C_

_._

It is immediately obvious that I have said the wrong thing.

She looks puzzled—or perhaps surprised—but certainly not happy. I don't know what answer will make her content so we appear to be settling for bemused silence. Later I can make another attempt at a response that will satisfy her; but for now at least, I'm far too cold. I feel the chill deep in my bones. They call this summer.

She's still staring at me, watching me shiver in my thick, sheepskin coat. Her bare arms as pale and as perfect as her heart-shaped face. This is what she's trying to tell me. This is what should frighten me.

"Can we go inside, Bella? I'm freezing."

The incredulity is etched plainly in her features. If my previous response had startled her, the current question had her nothing short of alarmed.

"Did you not hear what I just said?" She stutters then gapes, her mouth working open and closed soundlessly for a time. "I don't think you understand what I'm telling you. I know it's a lot to take in..."

When she trails off she looks completely lost. In that moment alone can I see her as she used to be: fifteen years old, all gangly limbs, and shy smiles. We're not fifteen any more. We can never be fifteen again.

My teeth knock together noisily, ruining the force of my exasperated sigh. She's disappointed, and I know how she feels. I came here expecting a cheerful reunion; to find the awkward, somewhat sullen girl that had been my only friend, and hold her in my arms while I told her how beautiful she had become. How she had grown into her skin. But you know what they say about best laid plans.

"You want me to be shocked? You want me to be appalled?"

She doesn't seem to know how to answer me, just watches as I finger the gash over my eye, my fingertips coming away stained with fresh blood. It had been some sort of attempt to protect me. Bella's husband, Edward, had shoved me out of the way of what he had perceived to be impending danger. 'Déjà vu', Bella had laughed. Edward had not found it amusing.

"Shocked would be appropriate! Do you even understand what I've said to you?" She asks me again, I feel like she has asked me a thousand times.

Behind her shoulder, Edward evaluates me with a pinched face and one narrowed eye. He's appraising me, and every time he considers me, my words, it means something. Even if I don't know what that is. Their daughter wrenches her hand free from his, and with a single wave in my direction, dashes off into the woods. She is terrifying and beautiful. At her mother's behest she had laid her hands upon me and shown me their story. Her secrets still echo in my mind.

"Of course I'm happy that you're here," she starts again. "Very happy. And I'm glad you're being so... understanding. It's just that I also want you to be cautious—be _careful_—where I wasn't."

I know what it is that she's saying. I can turn around, climb in to my shitty old Kombi, and drive back to wherever-the-Hell it is that I came from, or, I can stay. I can stay and hope that her secret doesn't kill me.

To her credit, she doesn't flinch when I wrap my arms around her, my cold lips whispering against her ear. "Please Bella, inside. Before my fingers fall off."

I start towards the house. It's tall, off-white walls are spotted with windows that glow with promised warmth. Edward strides out ahead of me and holds the door open with a sweeping arm. An antique gesture. Inside, there stands a couple, arms wrapped around each other. From her correspondence alone I can tell that these are Bella's parents-in-law. Her emails were often dotted with romantic descriptions of the Cullen family—the patriarch in particular.

"Edward, Bella. We were wondering when you were going to invite your guest in." Her voice is a soft hum; she has a mothers smile.

She shakes my hand gently, once. I can barely feel the pressure, the tips of my fingers are purple from the cold. When she introduces herself and her husband, her face shines with curiosity. They don't get many visitors, she explains. Of course they don't.

Bella tells her new family our shared history. At length she talks about how close we were in Arizona, how our mothers had become friends, how we exchanged secrets in the sun. She even goes on to tell them how my emails and phone calls stopped her from 'going crazy' in Forks.

"Until you stopped calling," I say, "I didn't hear from you for months."

Bella and Edward both have the decency to look ashamed. We don't really talk about the dark time. Those four months when Bella lost the love of her life, and the will to live. Knowing what I do now, I should wonder if there isn't so much more to tell, some darker truth buried within those stolen weeks. The subject is quickly changed, and as I remove my coat the low sound of central heating reaches my ears.

"I should take a look at that." The patriarch gestures to my face, the cut across my eyebrow.

Edward explains, "Carlisle's a doctor." I knew that already.

My fingertips are still stained with blood.

I nod my consent and the doctor disappears. While we wait for his return, Edward hangs my coat by the door, Bella guides me to the sofa, and Esme offers me a drink. Bella tells her that I drink tea, that even as my accent fades my drinking habits remain wholly _English._ I don't have time to ask if they even have tea in the house before she is gone from sight, leaving me alone with my friend and her husband.

"I'm sorry I missed the wedding."

The invitation I am certain was sent only as a nicety, she never truly expected me to attend. She tells me as much before wondering aloud—not for the first time—what I'm doing here, why I'm not back at college. It's difficult to explain. How can I not tell her this, when she has told me everything? For years she hedged around it. Wanting so badly to tell me the secret that in the beginning was not hers to share. When finally it was, she left electronic clues, and spoke in cellular riddles that my rational mind could not comprehend. Secrets like hers did not exist.

When the doctor returned, Edward rose from his chair. "I should go and find that daughter of ours. Before she gets herself in to trouble." He leaves with a smile on his face. Toothy, and charming. Probably the only genuine part of him that I have seen.

Carlisle sets his things down and waves me to him, a reassuring nod soon after. With gloved hands he cleans the gash and I gasp when it stings sharply. Quietly he apologises, and assures me that I won't need stitches. He sees my fingers tipped with blood, long ago dried, and takes my hand gently in his. Something in his slow, unnecessary exhalation of air makes me feel sad. I clear my throat and he releases my fingers.

"Bella, could you show me to the bathroom?"

She smirks. "Need a human minute?"

I loathe the expression at first utterance. I loathe the face that shaped it, the lips that formed it, the voice that spoke it. All perfect and grotesque. All at once Bella and never less like her. I nod because I'm too nervous to speak, too angry to form a polite sentence.

The whole house is immaculate. Right down to the polished porcelain of the lavatory. When finally my hands are clean I splash some water on my face. I look tired. I feel exhausted.

Back in the living room everyone is seated again, and on the coffee table rests a dainty china cup, nestled in it's saucer, teabag dangling over the edge. I thank Esme as I sit down and take an experimental sip. My throat loosens, my lips hum. She spares me only a glance before turning her attention back to Bella, and the girl upon her knee. They have their fingers laced together, and Bella's eyes are closed, lids fluttering.

"She prefers it to talking." Edward explains.

I lean closer to the girl, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her small, pale face. "I imagine I would, too."

She smiles at me, wide and bright; the very picture of childish glee. But she isn't a child. Not _just_ a child.

"You never told us what brought you here." Bella says, "Are you taking a break from college?"

I'm certain now that she has seen through each of my evasions. This heavenly creature is too canny to be Bella, but I'm desperate to have my friend back so all I can do is pretend.

"I might go back. I'm just not sure yet. Bella," I fairly whine, "I don't know _what_ to do. I don't know _who_ I am." I want to tell her I'm scared. Not just of her secret, of her family, but of life. Of living. But here, in front of her husband, her child, her in-laws, and in the wake of her revelation... it seems too trivial.

Perhaps you'd have to be a mind reader to know my discomfort, to sense how desperately I wanted to talk to Bella. _My_ Bella. Alone.

"You haven't even seen the cottage yet. Bella should take you for a walk, it really is lovely down there." Edward gives me a small, knowing smile. My cheeks heat.

I'm finishing the last sip of my tea as Bella hands her daughter off to Esme and snatches up my coat, telling me the story of their marital cabin. She plucks the now empty china cup from my fingers, whisking it, and it's saucer away. I haven't even had time to stand before she's at the open door, waving my coat excitedly. Whether or not she witnesses the shocked exchange of her family, I do not know, but it is hard to imagine she misses something even my dull eyes can see. I thread my arms through the heavy sheepskin and she sweeps me out of the door in another extraordinary display of speed.

* * *

_Friday. Post meridiem – 18°C_

_._

It is immediately obvious that I have said the right thing.

She's doubled over with laughter, shaking and heaving as I tell her the story of how I left college to start driving aimlessly all over the country. My journey of self discovery seems silly sitting here, next to her. We exchanged stories for hours wandering around her cabin, their family home, and along the banks of a river, weaving tales through the trees. Standing at the bottom of an especially beautiful cedar, I told her I wished I could climb to the top. She told me how she often did. When I asked her to haul me up, even to the lowest boughs, she shook her head sadly. It's dangerous, I'm fragile, Edward would be furious.

In the years we exchanged phone calls and emails Bella spoke a great deal about Edward. In the beginning at least, she seemed to tell me everything. It's because you can't see me, I would tell her. Can't see me judging you. She would laugh at the truth in that. And I knew it to be true because I felt the same. Over time she grew more distant, gradually able to tell me less and less about her life. I had blamed Edward. When the dark time came, and the emails stopped, I worried for a time that he had killed her. The portrait I had painted of Edward was abusive, and cruel. Even now, it is not _what _he is, but _how_, that makes me feel as though I was right all along.

If telepathy is his shield, manipulation is his sword.

"So where are you off to next? Think you can stay in Forks for a while?"

"Oh yeah," I nod with sarcastic vigour. "I'll blend right in 'round these parts. You know, between the zombies and the regular old pasty locals." The rich brown of my skin, and the natural curl of my hair had never been more pronounced than in the lush, green town of Forks.

Bella laughs, baring her perfect teeth. "You'll wish I was a zombie by the time I'm done with you!"

She runs circles around me, flinging herself tree to tree, pretending to chase me. I'm trying to do what she asked of me, trying to exercise caution, but when we reach the porch of the main house and collapse in to a giggling pile of limbs I can barely even remember what it is I'm supposed to be afraid of.

_She's a monster_, I think. "You're a monster," I laugh out loud.

I'm nervously excited when she tells me I should stay for a few days. It seems her sister-in-law, Rosalie, and her husband, Emmett, are away for a while. A second honeymoon, she tells me. They have been together since the thirties, and desperately in love the entire time. She tells me that Rose is the most beautiful creature in all of creation, and I don't doubt it for even a second. There is no more room in my life for scepticism.

The peculiar living situation of the Cullen family had been relayed to me over Bella's first few months in town. She herself thought it no more gossip worthy than her neighbours new lawn mower. But me? I had thought it thoroughly scandalous! An opinion not entirely changed since the revelation of their true familial nature. They weren't just a family. They were a nest. A coven? If there is a word for what they are collectively known as, Bella has not told me what it is. I don't think she wants to.

In the space of three heart beats she has run to my van, collected my bags, and offered me a hand. I take it. She smiles. It's like we were never apart.

She puts my bags in Rosalie's room. It's beautiful. It seems surprisingly feminine for a shared space, and is pristinely clean. Bella points out the spacious bathroom before flopping down on the enormous bed. They don't sleep, she tells me. I don't need to ask why the bed is here.

We lay there on our backs, the late afternoon sun filtering in through soft curtains. Her skin sparkles. Her perfection pains me.

"I want to hate you." I say.

"I know." Is her reply.

It's a strange scene in the kitchen. Esme and Ren are working in tangent, preparing dinner for the 'breathers'. Ren, Bella tells me, is the name I am to address her daughter with. If there's more to that story—and I'm certain there is—she doesn't wish to share it. We're having veggie burgers, Ren informs me. When I ask if that's her favourite, the child's mouth clamps shut and her mother grimaces. I can only imagine.

* * *

_Saturday. Ante meridiem – 7°C_

_._

In the very early hours of the morning Ren is fast asleep in the cottage, watched over by a vigilant, loving grandmother, while Carlisle is beginning his shift at the hospital. Bella and Edward left hours ago to get their own meal, and share some time together. I cannot sleep. The potent mixture of excitability and fear races through my blood, keeping me awake. I wonder, not for the first time, if any of them can hear the erratic beating of my heart.

There is every chance that I am alone in the house but still I tiptoe down the stairs. There's water in the fridge. I take out a single bottle and press it to my throat, cooling my nervous blush. I catch my reflection shining back at me, warped and distorted in the polished steel of the toaster. What a mess. Setting down the water bottle, I probe my injured eyebrow experimentally. My fingertips come away clean.

"I am sorry about that."

A sharp stab of fear tears down my spine. Every single vertebrae rattles in turn until my whole body is shaking in earnest. When I turn to face him, fully illuminated in the moonlight, my tremors are yet to subside.

"It was hardly your fault." My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. I have no idea how long I've taken to respond.

"No. True enough." He smiles, lips never parting.

Earlier, Ren had laid her hands on my face, spilling her families secrets into me. I was dumbstruck. A little cold, and more than a little afraid, I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet and striking my face against the headlight of my van. It had been a tiny cut. Jasper had reached for me, Edward had pushed me away. At some point the tiny cut tore open. Soon it will just be an ugly scab.

He's staring at me with that same tight lipped smile. It's almost a smirk. Almost. It makes me yearn to know what would have happened if he'd gotten his hands on me.

"You weren't planning on biting me, were you Jasper?" I want the question to be playful but it sounds thin, and fearful. His gaze slides down my throat and back up my face. I'm drowning in his eyes.

"No, Lena." Is all he says.

And whether it's the intensity of his stare, or the fear of what I suspect is his lie, I shiver again. I feel the chill deep in my bones. They call this summer.


	2. The First Rule

_Saturday. Ante meridiem – 20°C  
_

_._

The first rule is: breathe.

Every game has rules, she tells me, and this game is especially dangerous. _Breathe_. We need these rules because we're breaking another. One of Edwards. If he finds us he'll be furious, she whispers, and though she smiles as she says it, I can plainly see that it is true. _Breathe_. It's an easy rule to remember. Even as Bella wraps my legs around her, and digs her fingers in to my exposed upper thigh, I have no trouble drawing breath. When I press my face into her hair I want nothing more than to inhale. _Breathe_. _Breathe. Breathe_.

And we're flying.

The world has disappeared; replaced instead with a never ending canvas on which we paint our own futures. Out here we can make mountains. Each slow, methodical stroke of the brush erases a part of who we were and replaces it with the promise of who we could become.

Her legs slow minutely, and just when I think we are done running—we begin the climb. It takes no time at all for her to scale the tree, even with me clinging desperately to her marble frame. Near the top she releases me. My arms unwind from around her neck, and I slide slowly down her body. She holds me close. It's strangely intimate, but not uncomfortable. A streak of thick tears roll down my face, settling on my wind-chapped lips before I can remember the rules.

"Breathe." Bella laughs. The sound is at home here among the other birdsong.

I want to tell her that I'm terrified. That I'm not ready to live in a world where monsters are real, and my best friend is dead, but the words are lodged in my throat. My heart smashes against my ribcage. The weight of knowing, the shame of pretending, burn me.

"Breathe," she says it again. "Breathe."

Back on solid ground we talk about our lives. Brilliant, golden rays of sunshine slash through the leafy canopies above us, igniting her skin as she speaks. She tells me about how she wants to go college one day—maybe in Alaska—about how being a mother has given her patience, and about how all this would be easier if Alice were here. I would hate Alice, she tells me, and rolls her eyes. Before she can elaborate on why, the words are bursting from between my lips.

"Where _is_ Alice?"

"Gone." Is the reply.

She does not tell me much more than that. Only that it has been a long time, that it was not much of a shock, and that they do not expect her back. I know how hard it is to lose a best friend. I wrap my arms around her, squeezing tight, and whisper my condolences in to the wind.

At the cottage, Bella takes her daughters hands in hers and they converse in voices so quiet that I cannot make out a single word. They are a Christmas card. They are a magazine cover. They are everything that every mother aspires to be, captured in a single, eternal bell jar. I am tired beyond my years.

Ren wants lunch. The concept is simple but Bella's face looks grave, and I am left to intuit the things that remain unspoken. I tell them to go. I smile cheerily and wave them away, and try not to be afraid of the man left behind. He knows that I am. I feel him picking at my brain. It is not something that he can always control, I am told. Sometimes even _he_ wishes that our secrets were our own.

"Edward?" I ask quietly, unnecessarily. "Would you walk me to the main house?"

As we walk, he tells me more about himself: pieces of his history, fragments of his dreams. I do not think that he tells a single lie but I suppose I will never truly know. His perfectly chiselled face shines dully in the late morning sun as he speaks. Like Bella; not like Bella. I hate him. He smiles at me ruefully, bringing me a stop with a gentle hand. There are no words spoken as a nervous sweat breaks out across the back of my neck. None spoken as I wrap myself up tighter in my sheepskin coat. There is a single word spoken when the wind whips across my knees, the skin exposed between the top of my tall boots, and the hem of my cream coloured dress.

"Lena." It's a curse. He speaks my name with the soft admonishment of a father. Though I do not know his exact age, I can hear one hundred weary years in that name. "I could tell you that you're wrong about me. That every fear you have is unfounded. I could lean in close and tell you that I have never treated Bella poorly... and you would believe me."

His nose is touching mine, his breath is in my mouth. I believe every word.

"But all I really want is for you to know that I am _trying_." Mercifully, he draws away from me. "I'm trying to be a better husband, a better father. A better person."

He's smiling, and it's shy, and honest.

Inside the main house, I rifle through my things in search of my paperback. The pages are yellowed, warped from the damp, and more than one vital passage has been torn away. Ravaged as much from my affection for it, as time itself, the book is a sad reminder. We hurt the things we love.

Soft piano music lingers in the hallway—too muted to be real. I follow the sound. My footfalls are quiet, though never silent in this house, and my fingers flex nervously around the discoloured tome. The door is ajar. A single pale hand emerges, fingers closing over the door's edge, and pulling it wide. The ashen face of the doctor greets me.

"Bartók," I state. As though answering a question I was yet to be asked.

"Frankenstein." His reply, gaze lingering on the book in my arms. "Would you like to come in?"

The study is richly decorated; every wall covered in books and paintings. This would be my haven too, I thought. An eternity could well be lost in countless books, fine paintings, and Hungarian composition. The doctor repeats the title of my book again. I tell him that it's my favourite and he makes a sound that is almost a chuckle, but just short of a laugh. He asks me if I am fond of monsters. Honestly, I do not know, but I answer him as best I can.

"I'm trying to be."

What I think might be a glimmer of understanding catches in his eye. He takes a deliberate step toward me. The reflex to take a step back is hard to fight, and were it not for his serene, youthful face, the way he looms over me might be menacing. But he has studied us for a long time. Humanity. He knows how close is too close, and he is not yet there. When he reaches out, taking my face in his long, bony fingers, I close my eyes. I am safe in his hands. He inspects my wound and tells me that it is 'healing nicely'.

For a time I follow the river. When it splinters off in to a series of smaller streams, I follow one of those. Eventually the water is little more than a trickle through its muddy banks. The air is warm, and damp. Everything in the shaded glade is slick with moss and ripe with summer. Verdant. I take off my boots, then socks, stuffing them inside and rest my book atop them. At the edge of the water my feet sink deep and the chipped red paint on my toenails is sluggishly consumed by the rich brown mud. I lay my coat out on the grass and sit: my book in one hand, the other picking absently at the dirt spotting my dress. It dries slowly on to the fabric, my outstretched legs, and even my hands. I feel content.

* * *

_Saturday. Post meridiem – 22°C  
_

_._

My phone beeps. I'm surprised it has a signal. _Bella_. I tell her not to hurry, that I'm enjoying the time alone. I tell her that I'm happy. It is only a text message, and they are not the best conveyance for emotional tone, but I hope that she reads it and knows that it is true. Being here, seeing her again—it's healing me. I imagine telling her that face to face. All too easily I can picture her replying that she think it's ironic—never having really understood the word. The imagining makes me laugh out loud.

"Now that's what I call a smile." He stands at my feet, his faint shadow creeping up my muddied calves. A bell rings soundly in my brain: _alarm_. "I was beginning to think only Bella got to see those."

My mind struggles to string a sentence together, and my legs go uselessly numb. Even if I wanted to—even if I _could_—flight would be pointless. He crouches there at my feet, watching me with golden eyes and a crooked smile. Jasper is positively leonine.

"You're filthy."

His gaze makes a lazy sweep up my legs and I feel my own eyes widen to the point of discomfort. My silence stretches too long to be considered polite, and even though the toothy smile slips off his face, he doesn't look offended. Blush creeps up the back of my neck. My ears tingle, and just as I worry that the heat of it will set my face ablaze he speaks again.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"Yes."

This should be where it ends. This is supposed to the part where the civilised monster takes his leave of me—because humans are friends, not food. But he isn't. He's laughing. The sound is low, it makes my stomach feel heavy, and I don't want it to stop. I hastily shuffle aside as he sits next to me on my coat, shoulder to shoulder, our legs stretched out, my feet brushing against his shin. The chill of his skin reaches my bare arms. He takes my book and begins leafing through the pages, smiling to himself. The stretching silence grows comfortable. My fear ebbs.

"Jasper?"

He faces me, one eyebrow raised in surprise as though he assumed I would never speak again.

I continue, "If I insisted that you leave, would you?"

For a time he considers me. "Yes. I suppose I would."

Something about his answer feels unsatisfactory. The displeasure must be written on my face because he qualifies his statement.

"Not because it's the right thing to do, mind you. Not because you asked me nicely. I would leave because that would be in my best interests. Offending you would upset Bella, and that has the potential to... _disrupt_ our family dynamic."

"That's painfully honest of you."

He smiles again, "I thought you might prefer honesty."

"I do. I just wasn't sure _you_ did."

He has the decency not to lie to me then. His silence is response enough.

We sit together for a long time as the air slowly cools. The silences are punctuated with short conversations, or the beeping of my phone as I continue to text Bella. At one time I began to read aloud from my book, stopping when I reach one of the larger tears in the page, only to have Jasper recite the missing words back to me. _Fascinating_. Eidetic memory, he tells me, tapping his honey coloured curls. I read aloud a little longer and he continues to fill in the gaps until I reach the next sheaf of undamaged pages. For a solid minute I can feel his eyes on me. I close the book. He's too distracting. When I finally turn to face him he is so very close, his gaze scrutinising.

"My eyes were brown once."

I'm filled with a strange sort of melancholy at his tone.

"Not bright like Bella's were. Dark, like yours."

He swipes his thumb once across my cheekbone, under my eye. Were it not for the cool trail left on my skin I may not have noticed the feather-light touch. It's happening again. I'm drowning in his eyes. I reach out to touch him—return the gesture perhaps—when I catch myself. My skin a meagre centimetre from his. It is easy enough to withdraw my hand, less so to contain my babbling apology. It's just that it's all so terribly _interesting_, I tell him, and he smiles again. Then I simply cannot stop myself. I tell him every single thought I have had since learning their family secret, ask every single question Bella won't answer, and gripe about every single inconsistency in their existence. I feel such relief. I should probably be mortified at the prospect of him knowing all of this, scared at the thought of offending him. The embarrassment—the fear—never comes.

Finally, I stop talking. He waits for me to catch my breath, that good-natured smile still firmly in place, before reaching between us and taking my hand in his. Slowly, he lifts it to his face, pressing my muddy palm against his pallid cheek.

"Ask me again." He says, as my fingers lightly probe his unyielding skin. "Every question Bella doesn't wanna answer for you."

With his perfectly sculpted lips resting against my small wrist, the pulse thrumming steadily within, I ask the question I least want answered. _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

"Why am I still so afraid?"


	3. Manners for My Killer

_Saturday. Post meridiem – 10°C  
_

_._

It's perfect. Being here with you, our fingers interlaced, lying in bed, talking just like we used to. Soon it will be midnight. The droop of my eyes and slow slur of my speech are reflections of every hour that I have been awake. You have been awake for months. You look better than you ever have. You are dead.

I write it like a letter in my mind while I stare at her inhuman beauty. I don't want to find her so captivating, and I tell her as much. She wishes I didn't have to either. It's all a part of the 'package', she says. A little taller, a little curvier, straightened teeth, thickened hair. Unquenchable thirst for human blood.

I want to drift off, give in to the sleep my body is calling for, but Bella won't let me. She's giggling nervously about something. You could almost forget that she is a monster. Having waited long enough, she leans in close and speaks in a whisper. She wants to know about Jasper. Where did we go? What did we talk about? The questions are flying past her lips even as I try desperately to cover her mouth. She giggles, I shush her, there's a gentle rapping on the bedroom door. Bella calls for them to enter before I can clap my hands back over face. Esme lingers in the doorway. She informs Bella that Ren is sleeping soundly, and that Edward will stay with her at the cottage. She turns to leave when the thought occurs to her.

"Careful, dear," she points to her own mouth before gesturing back to us, "sharp teeth."

A little shamefacedly, Bella zips out of my grasp and starts tucking me in before I can protest. She tells me she should never forget how frail I am. I tell her I want to climb another tree. It is then that she tells me how I sound just like she used to: reckless and stupid. It's easier for her to infantalise me than to engage in a serious discussion about our predator-prey relationship. I want to tell her that she sounds just like Edward but my eyes are heavy, and my mouth is full of cotton.

* * *

_Sunday. Ante meridiem – 14°C_

_._

Breakfast is a quiet affair. I am the only one eating though Bella, her husband, and daughter all sit with me making idle chatter while I chew. I have never enjoyed idle chatter. When I finish my meal I wash the dishes. The crockery is modern and white, and it looks perfect stowed away next to its counterparts. All seldom used, all expensive beyond my estimation. I am weary for the early hour.

When their conversation lulls I clear my throat. I have an appointment in Seattle, the time has changed, I cannot stay as long as I have promised. I provide them with little more detail and this upsets Bella. It upsets me, too. It might only have been one more day but we could have made that day last forever. Could have written it in the sky.

She tells me to come back. She says it without consultation or hesitation, without any regard for a life that is not hers or mine. Come right back, she pleads, meet Rosalie and Emmett. At that statement, Edward grimaces. Whatever dark thought he has captured in his pinched face—it is not for me to know. I tell her that I want to, that I would if I could, that returning here would make me happier than I have ever been. The truth of that leaves me raw. In the end I acknowledge that it is a family matter, she should discuss it with them.

Exiting the kitchen, Carlisle crosses my path.

"Bartók," I greet.

"Frankenstein," his reply.

I laugh all the way up the stairs.

My hands are clammy, resting on the handle of the bedroom door. The air is thick with a feeling, I swallow it deep. It is heavy like mud in my lungs. Before I can turn the handle he opens the door and beckons to me, shutting us in. This is part of his gift, as I understand it. A cloud of emotion that he is prone to wearing around as though it is his Sunday best. I cannot name it, only feel the weight of it upon my shoulders. It will crush me to death.

"Please stop," I plead. And it does. I know better than to expect an apology. If I have found my emotions twisted and strange it is because he wants them to be.

He asks me what is in Seattle. We appear to have moved beyond formality and in to familiarity. I do not like the change. I do not think he cares. Rather than answer him, I take a seat on the bed. It still smells sweetly of the creatures who normally reside here. The scent is a trap. One weapon in a thousand.

"You know," he begins, "some humans are gifted with a quality that grants them exceptional power. Those qualities are what evolve in to the supernatural gifts we possess after our transition."

"Do you think I'm _gifted_, Jasper?"

"Perhaps." He stares at me for a time, my heart gives an irregular thump. "We're all surprisingly willing to share our secrets with you, yet you seem to share so little with us."

I tell him I am an open book, that there is nothing more to me than what can readily be seen. Ask me anything, I challenge, knowing he will. He asks me what is in Seattle. An impasse, apparently.

"Come on. You get one question, one guaranteed answer, don't just throw it away!"

He asks again why I'm going to Seattle, and again I stare mutely in to his eyes. Edward could pluck the thought from my head, he tells me. I imagine he already has. There is nothing for him to gain from that answer other than the knowing, but my only power lies in the withholding. It is childish. But I am little more than a child. He asks me again as I climb off the bed, he asks me again as I put on my coat, and he asks me again as I am leaving the room.

The clouds are bruised, ripe with rain. My boots squelch in the sodden earth, sinking deeper the closer I move to the tree line. I want to be angry. I want to hate him just a little, but I can already feel the lethargic creep of his manufactured calm upon me. My legs are heavy. My feet are dragging. I do not know exactly how far I have walked carrying the burden of my own body but I hope that it is far enough. I turn to find him behind me. He was always right behind me.

"Can they hear us?"

"No," Jasper says, "not from here."

He is waiting for me to tell him my secret—a secret he is sure I have—but I am frozen in front of him. Always. Crushes are cruel like that. So awful to the heart that holds them. His eyes pin me in place and scrawl illegibly on my lungs—stealing my breath. I want to embrace the panicky euphoria that should be here in my ribs where all I feel is cold calm. I plead with him to stop again, and he returns my emotions to me. Sweat crawls across my brow—hidden in the rain. He has perennial patience and I wonder if my silence will ever find the end of it.

"If you don't plan on tellin' me, why come all the way out here? Why care what they can hear?"

"Scheherazade."

"Scheherazade?"

"I'm worried. What if my story isn't interesting enough to keep me alive? What if you kill me before I get to finish telling it to you?"

"Why would I kill you?"

I press my chest against his, I clutch his sweater in my fists, I kiss him with my eyes closed. He lets me. Even damp, strange, and disgustingly human as I am—he lets me. I shouldn't have. Never without permission; maybe never at all. I step back and the air is electric. His jaw twitches, his fingers flex, his skin can barely contain him. This cannot be fixed if it is broken, it is the sort of bridge that burns too easily. I tell him I am sorry, and he asks me why. The answer is obvious. The answer is manifold. The answer is a many-splintered thing.

It happens too quickly for me to comprehend. His hand is inside my coat, resting on my hip; the other on my nape, knotted in my curls. My body aches and my mind is stained when he slants his mouth over mine. I gasp. He captures one lip between his two. I shatter. My hands reach out for him, my heart pushes up into my throat, my blood boils. When I imagine that there are no more thoughts left in the universe, I hear it.

_Careful, dear. Sharp teeth_.

I am choosing from one million ways to die by moulding myself against him. The panic strikes me, and blood that once burned with rebellion runs cold in my veins. I am frozen in front of him. Again. Always. He hovers around my unresponsive form, lips linger over my pulse before his body makes an earnest retreat. My lungs are full of coal and I am breathing in fire. I want it to burn forever.

He reaches for me and I flinch. Before I can finish the end of my breathy apology he is reaching again. Slowly. So slowly. His thumb ghosts over my cheek, and drifts under my eye. His eyes were brown once. Dark, like mine.

"Am I in danger?"

"Always."

"Do you think that you'll kill me?"

A crooked smile stretches up one side of his face. It's all sharp teeth and southern charm. "Well, not on purpose."

And just like that he has ruined me. My hand is not my own when it reaches out and presses against his mouth, fingertips lightly tracing. My thumb draws back his upper lip. My body shakes. It could be the cold, it could be my nerves, it could be my end. He steals my wrist away, grips my pulse in his fingers. I am saved from the inconvenience of tearing myself open on his teeth, from bleeding into his mouth.

We walk back towards the house, and I am slowed by the damp. He makes no move to aid me. There are some things, he says, that we must do for ourselves. But he opens the door for me. He offers to take my coat.

* * *

_Sunday. Post meridiem – 16°C_

_._

I am in pieces by the time the rain stops; I worry at my lips, and rub at my eyes. She issues me some kind of warning but I cannot process even a single sound. There is thunder in my ears. She milks me for information even knowing that I cannot hide from her husband's gift. He has picked my brain clean. I want to be principled, keep this memory safe because it is not mine alone, have them take it forcibly if they must at all. There are no secrets kept from them, only the secrets that they keep. So why does he keep my secrets?

Edward must have told her, I say. It is a statement, and a question, and a mystery beyond my imagining. She shakes her head. There is a lot he doesn't tell her, she says. It is both sad, and true. What she doesn't know can't hurt her, ignorance is bliss. He thinks that he protects her. He shelters her like a child.

I tell her she is a supernova, that she is whisky, and wine. I tell her that if she lets me keep this secret, lets me hide it in my heart just for now, that tomorrow I will tell her anything. But I won't. Because I am tomorrow what I am today, and today I am a liar. If she sees that I am shot full of nervous holes—or too transparent to her eyes—she does not say. Instead, she asks when I will return from Seattle. Wednesday, at the latest. We spend the afternoon running, talking, and biding our time.

At night they light a fire in the yard. It is hot, and bright, and it scorches our names into the horizon. The doctor and his wife dance to the music, the stereo swells with a tune I cannot name. Ren perches on her uncle's shoulders, weaving flowers through her mother's hair. They are all beautiful. Each one of them so perfect in death that living seems like a mistake. I close my eyes tight and try to burn this memory there, keep it etched on the back of my eyes. Let it haunt me in my sleep.

"Would you do me the honour?"

His hand is outstretched, his expression almost sombre. I want to carve a smile on to his lips just to prove that they exist.

"Of course, Edward." The name sticks like glue in my teeth. I knew an Edward once. I had disliked that boy, too.

With my hand wrapped in his, and another on my back, he moves us gently to the music. I feel weary and calm when our dance becomes no more than a subtle sway, and Bella's smile is a blur hidden deep within her silhouette. There exists a peculiar temptation to rest my cheek against his chest. I do.

"You're such a hypocrite," he says. "You hate Bella's choices, and then you mirror them. You can't stand the way I treat her, but you treat her much the same." He takes care to keep his voice low, his lips close to my ear. "If you come back here you'll be making the same mistake she did."

"Her only mistake is loving you." It is a stupid thing to say. It is ugly, and mean, and I believe it with every cell in my body.

"I know," he says. It sounds like defeat.

I take his face in my hands and our dance has ended. I call him a fool and his cheek ticks, his jaw grinds under my palm. The beast is awake. If only it will listen. I tell him that his daughter is proof of his kindness, that his music is proof of his soul, that his family is proof monsters are only what we make them.

"There's only one thing I truly hate about you, Edward. You torture _them_ when you torture _yourself_."

My hands move to his chest. There's a hole here where a heart would fit, I tell him, it's a perfect place to keep one.

"And what about you?" he asks me, "Don't you need one, too?"

I stand outside long after the fire has died down, long after the Cullens have retreated into their warm, wooden homes. I stand outside until my fingers turn blue, and my lips are numb—heavy with regret. The sky is punctured with stars, swollen with life. I could almost feel immortal. Out here I bleed moonlight.

Darkness settles around me as I close my eyes. The memory is there—scratched inside, inked with fireflies—the perfect family on a perfect night. Forever is not long enough to stand here watching the doctor twirl his beautiful wife around the fire. And besides, I do not have forever. All I have is now and everything that came before it. It will have to be enough. Even open, my eyes can see their ghosts, see the smoke, see their souls. It fills me with a longing that tugs at my sleeve, begging for me to let it wash me away. For a second I think that I might.

There is a rustling in the trees. I hear the snap of a twig. Fear grabs me by the ribs, shakes bile in to my throat, and sends my heart crashing against my chest. One careful step backwards is all I can make. My legs turn to jelly, I am sinking in sand. He emerges from the tree line: he is tall, he is big, and he is entirely unknown to me. I whisper Bella's name. I draw a jagged breath in between my teeth and hiss her name again. My lungs are filled with broken glass, it shreds my attempt at a scream. If my terror is reflected on my face, it does not bother him. The stranger narrows his eyes to take me in. He stalks closer until I can plainly see each muscle working under his dark skin.

"Stop."

My voice is thready and hollow. As I draw in breath to try again, he speaks.

"Haven't seen you here before. You a friend of the family?"

There are questions in his questions, there are questions in his eyes. If I am meant to know what they are—I do not. Two more steps back. His one giant stride forward is worth any three of mine.

"Please stop." Niceties with a stranger. Manners for my killer. "Just stop and tell me who you are."

"You first." His voice is a bark, a gunshot, a fire under my feet, and I am running for the door.

I take all of the steps in two long strides but I do not reach the door. Between the beats of my heart it opens and closes again, and I am caught up in stony arms, slammed firmly against a chest. My bones jar with the impact. My teeth rattle. The stranger halts his pursuit and my rescuer murmurs in my ear. _Jasper_.

"Easy Jacob, you're scarin' our guest."


	4. This Is the Montage

_Monday. Ante meridiem – 9°C_

_._

They talk in straight lines. All uniform and neat. A conversation should have bends and folds, turns that make you want to wrap your arms around it. This charmless civility is clearly well practised between the two. Somehow I know that they are having another conversation underneath this one. One I cannot hear. Once he realises who I am Jacob is quick with consolation. He should have recognised me, he says, he has heard so much about me. I mirror his words back but they are not wholly true. There is no way to reconcile this boy with the one that Bella has described. Her Jacob is lanky and shy, a giddy smile on a childish face; but this Jacob is a wall of muscle, a twitching fury in a coat of skin. She loves him. I wonder which of the two she fell in love with. The boy gives me a tentative smile and a wave goodnight before starting off towards the cottage.

Jasper is perfectly still and quiet as the grave. My body shakes with unspent adrenaline, blood rushes in my ears. I have a dozen questions but not a single one can fight its way past my teeth while I am still looking at him. A lingering embarrassment.

"So, which classic movie monster is he?"

He smiles, amused. "Guess."

I consider it carefully. It is obvious that he is something else—something _more_ than human—but I do not yet know what. His skin had appeared warm and dark, his face was round and youthful, he had emerged shirtless from the trees. "Woodland nymph?" It is such a peculiar thing I find myself doing—mockingly guessing at what creatures I surround myself with.

His responding laugh is deep and brilliant. "No, no. But I'll be sure to tell him you thought so."

A minute stretches out between us and it becomes obvious that he will not tell me. Either they have some sort of agreement or Jasper suffers from supernatural scruples. Would I? I wonder if I drank blood and lived forever, would I bother to burden myself with congeniality? I hardly bother now. The minute stretches in to another, and then two more, and then I am no longer counting.

"It's my family," I say. He looks bemused so I answer his stare, "You must have asked me a dozen times—I'm going to Seattle to see my family."

I tell him about my parents who love without affection, about moving from England to America as a little girl. I tell him about Luc—my fraternal twin—born only six minutes before me but every inch a protective big brother; about how on the night of our high school graduation, he and his boyfriend boarded a plane for Seattle and never looked back. He's so brave, I say, so much more than I could ever be, and my lips feel heavy from the admission. I have lived nothing but a mixture of cowardice and conformity. The stupidity, I think, is new. I let a dead girl carry me to the top of a tree, I kissed a monster on the mouth. But what a beautiful monster he is.

A few hours sleep are all I need. The air is warm, the rain is light, and I am looking forward to the drive. I say goodbye to Bella and whisper a promise to return in her ear. Her answering smile is too magnificent for words. She is comely and cadaverous.

I follow the 101. It is all mountains, and trees, golden sunshine, and delicate rain. The windows are rolled down and the tinny echo of the stereo fights against the roar of the wind. I close my eyes for a heartbeat. My face feels warm. Only now, truly detached from their syrupy scent and their exquisite features can I see how great a danger they pose; the Cullens are a death that you walk to willingly. They do not want to eat us. We want to be eaten. The sad reality is that their impeccable manners and respect for human life are the only things keeping breath in our lungs, blood in our veins. They are dangerous. Somehow that is alluring in itself.

More than half of my journey is complete when an odd anxiety creeps across my shoulders. My hands sweat. My fingers are chilled. By the time the drive is finally over I am clammy and pale, shaking at the thought of seeing them again. It will be the first time that we have all been in the same room together since my brother left home. I need armour. I need to summon up protection against the barbed tongue and heated steel of my mother's savage inquiry. She sharpens her knives for family. This time will be no exception. She cuts through flesh and strikes at bone until we are no longer her children, no longer human, no more than twisting smoke. There is no cruelty quite like that of a mother, but her words can only hurt me if I let them. God knows I always do.

My wounds have healed but my skin grows no thicker.

That one grim thought lodges itself in my mind. It burrows deeper as I enter the city, a little deeper as I park the car, deeper still as I check in to the hotel. By the time I collapse against the stiff mattress in the foreign room I can imagine my skin to be no more than tissue paper, imagine that all too easily I will be torn apart.

I awake from a sleep I do not recall entering. Outside, the city has darkened, the buildings lit up, the day has slipped away. The incessant hum and chirp of my phone begs for attention.

"Hello?" My voice is thick with remnants of sleep. Inside my head it sounds like glass, feels like breaking bones. I shield my eyes and probe at my temples with fingers painted blue from the twilight. "Hello?" There is not a single sound to be heard from the other end of the call. Not even breath. "Bella?"

"Why are you really here? What's going on?" She speaks with a sort of wispy stutter. It is a pale imitation of her old human defect.

Her questions are easy to answer, difficult to explain. "It's a family thing." How do you justly convey the the desire—the need—to see someone as I did her? The throbbing in my head calms. I open my eyes to find every speck of dust illuminated. "I just needed to see you. You used to be family too, you know? Before you disappeared." _Before you met the beast. Before you fell in love._

"You can tell me," she says, "you can tell me anything." I can keep a secret, she says without speaking. "I mean, you must have been pretty desperate coming to _me_ for guidance. I've never really... had my shit together."

I laugh so loudly my vision blurs. "Tomorrow."

"You said that yesterday."

"Tomorrow."

* * *

_Tuesday. Ante meridiem – 21°C_

_._

It's almost like a mirror. The face that stares back is mine, but not mine, more beautiful than mine could ever be. It has wider eyes that crinkle at the edges, a softer jaw to frame its unblemished skin, and fuller lips that lie closed in the promise of a smile. But Luc is not smiling. Not this time.

My father acknowledges my entrance with a nod of his head. My mother does not even turn to look at me—her profile a severe carving in cold stone. I stand beside her and we let the silence spill out between us. It comes up to our knees, pulls at my thighs, and I can feel it threatening to drag me beneath its waves, bury me at the bottom of its depths. I panic. Wish as I might to be struck dumb, I am instead filled with voice.

"You're a grim looking lot."

No other word is spoken until the room begins to fill with people, and I reach out to take Luc's hand. We are both so cold. The voices chatter in whispers as they take their seats and turn their eyes to me—now alone at the end of the room, a corpse's fingers laced with mine.

I have no memory of the words spoken. I cannot recall the series of events that lead me here. All I have is the memory of his hand in mine, and this persistent clenching in my chest, the burning in my throat. Before anyone had ever lain eyes on me, Luc had breathed in six minutes worth of air, had drum out six minutes worth of heart beats, he had shared six minutes of his fragile life with the world. But now he is gone.

I have no memory of the words spoken at his service. I cannot recall the series of events that lead me here, to the edge of his grave. All I have is the memory of his cold, dead hand in mine. And this persistent clenching in my chest—a heart learning to beat without him. The burning in my throat—lungs struggling to draw breath.

Slowly, my pulse steadies and my eyes dry, but my chest remains hollow. My brother's grave is full of dirt and devoid of life. Hours pass while I stare at it in the vain hope that it is all a delusion, that I am the victim of a cruel, elaborate hoax. I am not. I drive my hand into the sun-warmed earth of his grave. If I close my eyes tight enough I can hear him breathing, hear his heart beating. One more sob. One more dry, tearless heave. When I open my eyes his breath has stopped, his heart has stilled once more. Silence. It wasn't until I pulled my arm from the soil—saw the dirt clinging to it—that I realised both hands felt unclean.

Clumsy fingers manage to seal themselves around my phone, search out the numbers Bella has stored in there. A single ring. A silent greeting.

"How dead is too dead?"

When I fear that my question will require explanation, he speaks. "_That_ dead is too dead." Of course he understands. He has seen my mind. "I'm sorry Lena. We don't bring the dead back to life, only infect the living before death can truly take them." He is saved from awkwardly denying my request. Edward cannot save my brother, would not if he could.

"I know."

"But you needed to ask."

"I needed to ask."

* * *

_Tuesday. Post meridiem – 25°C_

_._

I pause with my fist in the air outside their apartment door. _His_ apartment door. He lives alone now. Skin pulls tight across my knuckles, the taste of gravel clings to my mouth. I knock lamely and hate myself for how weak it sounds, hate myself for existing. When he opens the door, Jorge looks much like he did at the funeral. His olive skin is sickly pale, and his eyes are sunken and dull. The door swings wide open but he does not move, does not breathe. _I'm sorry_, I want to tell him, _sorry that I wear his face. _But the moment passes and he leads me inside.

We stare a while longer—unspeaking—the pair of us inconsolable, our bodies possessed by sadness. He takes my hand. He rubs a long thumb over my knuckles, squeezes my palm. He is thinking about my lips, my eyes, trying not to let me obscure his vision of Luc. I ache. I yearn. I feel lost under the weight of his gaze. My dead brother's lover looks at me in a way no other man has. It's sick and it's sad, but I'll take it because I am desperate for this sliver of affection. Even if it is a lie.

"Lo siento," he says, and he takes his hand from mine. "I put together some boxes, gave one to your folks. It had some photos in it, some of Luc's school papers, his graduation cap..."

"You didn't need to do all this. It could have waited."

"It's okay. I needed to keep busy. And besides, he would have hated me moping about, too precious to part with his shit." He laughs but the sound is dry, empty. "Did a box up for you, too. Some of his records, his sweatshirts, that ridiculous fucking photo of the two of you from forth of July, remember that?"

Of course I do. We spent the whole night covered head to toe in paint, drunk as skunks on stolen wine. We danced like we were drowning, we sang like sailors at sea. I nod. I do not have the courage to smile or speak. He continues talking but I cannot make out many of the words. He tells me that their lawyer will handle everything else. We are too young to have lawyers. We are too young to need wills. We are too young to die.

I drive back to the hotel while the sky is still bright. Scenery cuts past the windows in a blur. I take the box up to my room and spill its contents over the comforter, imagining the perfect melancholy tune to accompany me. This is the montage. This is the part of the film where they cobble together all the footage of my grief. _See, that's me getting the phone call, that's me at the funeral, that's me crying over a box of my brother's junk_. What you don't see are the hours I spend lying in the bathtub, screaming underwater, desperate to be ripped in two.

Smash cut to me standing on a roof ledge. The Slug Line reads:

EXT. LENA'S HOTEL - ROOF - NIGHT

But the metaphor can no longer shield me. There is no script, there is no film. There is nothing but the numbness in my heart, and the concrete at my feet. The feeling is familiar now—it has lingered since Luc died—smothering my chest and attempting to conceal the grief, the shock, the rage. Dams such as this are built to break. And it will. It always does. Soon I will see with unflinching clarity. Soon I will have to accept that my brother is dead, and that horrors I once thought merely imagined are as real and definite as the city below me. I can smell exhaust, I can see stars, I can fling myself from this world to the next. Before I can step closer to the ledge, further from the act of living, my pocket chirps.

"Hello?" The phone is in my hand, pressed against my ear before I even think to look at the display.

"So," she says, "it's tomorrow. _Again_. Are you ready to answer my questions?" Bella possesses a mothers voice. It is a sobering revelation.

I tell her everything. It starts with the phone call from my mother, how she told me in her clipped tone that Luc was dead. I do not remember the words. I barely remember the day of the week. What I do remember is that I was peeling an apple with a buck-knife, cutting slices and chewing them slowly even after I had hung up the phone. I remember the paint swatches on my desk: _Hot Pop Yellow_, and _Riverland Blue_. I tell Bella about the funeral, about calling her husband, about visiting with Jorge. The story ends with me standing on the edge of a hotel roof, phone-in-hand, truly realising for the first time that she is an impossibility. And there it is. The dam has broken.

I fall to my knees in my best black dress—the kind you only wear to a funeral. Bella's voice buzzes in my ears, the sound oddly consoling for a creature who drinks blood. A creature. Not human. Not living, not alive, not anything that should exist in this world. She was right all along. I should have been afraid.

"I kissed Jasper," I say, "I kissed him and he didn't move, he wouldn't pull away. What sort of demons are you? Why would you let me leave that place alive?"

Bella laughs. The sound is watery and sad. She realises that I was not brave, I was not accepting of her situation. I was numb. She won't hold that against me, and that knowledge fills me with shame. I tell her that I have to go, that I have things to do. Pack up the box, tidy the room, throw myself off the building.

"You won't really." She wants to sound confident, but every syllable stings with doubt. "Just come home."

"I can't just go running back to you, Bella. I can't spend another day in the top of a tree, pretending my brother is still alive. And you... you can't spend another day with a bag of blood wandering around your house." And that is what I am—a walking temptation, an exercise in restraint. The line is silent for the longest time. "I'm sorry that I imposed on your family. It's just that I missed you and... I think... without Luc, I just needed something-"

"Familiar?"

I nod even knowing that she cannot see it. And I cry because it does not matter _what_ she is now, she _is_ still familiar, _is_ still Bella.

My soul feels as though it has been rubbed raw, left exposed and throbbing in the dark night. This anguish cannot last. Choking down the feeling of anxiety is easier than I expect it to be. Somehow I am certain that everything will be easier with her as my anchor. It is selfish to name her as my salvation. I will do it just the same. I will cling to any strength she has to offer me until I can stand on my own, until the crushing weight of my despair has lifted. Weak, sad, and wretched as I am, I will let her carry my burden. Only for a while. Just a little while.

"Bella-"

"Lena. Come home."


End file.
